The Nokia 5800 was launched on the 26th January 2009 and has gone on to become one of the best selling mainstream smartphones and media players around. It's also been our handset of choice but how have we gotten on with it? Find out with our Nokia 5800 review – one year on!
Has it really been a year since the Nokia 5800 was launched? In truth it’s a little over and in that time we’ve seen the handset sell over eight million units (and growing). It’s a smartphone that continues to garner praise as much as it does users.
It’s also been my smartphone of choice for the last 12 months. In many respects the choice was easy, it was the first Nokia smartphone aimed at the mass market. The fact we now have the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic, and to a lesser extent the Nokia 5230, taking their looks and user-cues from the Nokia 5800 is proof that it’s been a success.
Check out our original Nokia 5800 review
The thing that has always appealed about the Nokia 580 is the screen size and build quality. This device is built to last and while it is starting to show a few signs of wear and tear, the handset itself is still in full working order.
The 3.2-inch touchscreen has proven a great size for most functions and even the new Ovi Maps looks great on this size of screen. Tapping out messages can be a hit and miss affair when on the move but for the most part, the interface and the screen have worked well together.
Sure, the fat lip around the screen has been something of a dirt magnet and you find yourself having to clean around the edges on a semi-regular basis. That said, it does add to the formidable build quality so I wouldn’t be without it.
The Nokia 5800 is very much about music and media, with the design of the body being as much about audio quality as it is atheistic design. With limited internal memory, you become pretty reliant on microSD card for storing music but it’s worth it as music quality on this phone remains a pleasure and means we’ve been able to leave the MP3 at home on all but the longest of journeys.
Using the Nokia 5800 as a music player has obvious implications on battery life. When using it for calls and messages, for example, we’ve easily got a good three days out of the device. However, add a couple of hours of music into the mix and we’ve found the charger comes a calling every other day.
One aspect of the Nokia 5800 we’ve found hasn’t had has big an impact as we expected is the camera. The quality from the 3.2-Megapixel CCD is more than adequate, it’s just that we’ve not really found ourselves using it.
There have been frustrations along the way. For instance, it’s not the easiest device to get up and running with email and keeping it reliable has been a challenge at times.
Then there has been the issue of updates, over the course of the last 12 months the Nokia 5800 has had some half-dozen firmware updates, each one adding benefits and stability with fair regularity. However, I’m not the only one in finding that updates seem to arrive in their own time rather than when first issued, so the handset always feels as though it’s on the last, rather than latest, version.
So, have we enjoyed using the Nokia 5800 over the last year? On the whole, it’s been a great success, as the build quality and day-to-day functionality certainly makes it an appealing choice. It’s still my main device but will it have the chops to fight off the temptation of the Nokia X6? Only the coming months can tell…
Check out our Nokia 5800 review - one year on - image gallery:
